"Murray Leinster - Exploration Team" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leinster Murray)

“That’s true, too. Also it’s probable that your fellow terrestrials
wouldn’t co-operate with me as they have with you. You seem to have the whip
hand, even with my blaster trained on you. On the other hand, you could have
killed me quite easily after the boat left, when I’d first landed. I’d have
been quite unsuspicious. So you may not really intend to murder me.”
Huyghens shrugged again.
“So,” said Roane, “since the secret of getting along with people is that
of postponing quarrels—suppose we postponc the question of who kills whom?
Frankly, I’m going to send you to prison if I can. Unlawful colonization is
very bad business. But I suppose you feel that you have to do something
permanent about me. In your place I probably should, too. Shall we declare a
truce?”
Huyghens indicated indifference. Roane said vexedly:
“Then I do! I have to! So—”
He pulled his hand out of his pocket and put a pocket blaster on the
table. He leaned back, defiantly.
“Keep it,” said Huyghens. “Loren Two isn’t a place where you live long
unarmed.” He turned to a cupboard. “Hungry?”
“I could eat,” admitted Roane.
 Huyghens pulled out two mealpacks from the cupboard and inserted them in
the readier below. He set out plates.
“Now—what happened to the official, licensed, authorized colony here?”
asked Roane briskly. “License issued eighteen months ago. There was a landing
of colonists with a drone fleet of equipment and supplies. There’ve been four
ship-contacts since. There should be several thousand robots being industrious
under adequate humad supervision. There should be a hundred-mile-square
clearing, planted with food plants for later human arrivals. There should be a
landing grid at least half-finished. Obviously there should be a space beacon
to guide ships to a landing. There isn’t. There’s no clearing visible from
space. That Crete Line ship has been in orbit for three days, trying to find a
place to drop me. Her skipper was fuming.. Your beacon is the only one on the
planet, and we found it by accident. What happened?”
Huyghens served the food. He said dryly:
“There could be a hundred colonies on this planet without any one
knowing of any other. I can only guess about your robots, but I suspect they
ran into sphexes.”
Roane paused, with his fork in his hand.
“I read up on this planet, since I was to report on its colony. A sphex
is part of the inimical animal life here. Cold-blooded belligerent carnivore,
not a lizard but a genus all its own. Hunts in packs. Seven to eight hundred
pounds, when adult. Lethally dangerous and simply too numerous to fight.
They’re why no license was ever granted to human colonists. Only robots could
work here, because they’re machines. What animal attacks machines?”
Huyghens said:
“What machine attacks animals? The sphexes wouldn’t bother robots, of
course, but would robots bother the sphexes?”
Roane chewed and swallowed.
“Hold it! I’ll agree that you can’t make a hunting-robot. A machine can
discriminate, but it can’t decide. That’s why there’s no danger of a robot
revolt. They can’t decide to do something for which they have no instructions.